she said faintly and with an effort, "when you have to
serve tea or anything, please don't appeal to me, don't ask me
anything, don't speak of anything. . . . Do it all yourself, and
. . . and don't make a noise with your feet, I entreat you. . . . I
can't, because . . ."

Without finishing, she walked on towards the croquet lawn, but on
the way she thought of the ladies, and turned towards the
raspberry-bushes. The sky, the air, and the trees looked gloomy
again and threatened rain; it was hot and stifling. An immense flock
of crows, foreseeing a storm, flew cawing over the garden. The paths
were more overgrown, darker, and narrower as they got nearer the
kitchen garden. In one of them, buried in a thick tangle of wild
pear, crab-apple, sorrel, young oaks, and hopbine, clouds of tiny
black flies swarmed round Olga Mihalovna. She covered her face with
her hands and began forcing herself to think of the little creature
. . . . There floated through her imagination the figures of Grigory,
Mitya, Kolya, the faces of the peasants who had come in the morning
to present their congratulations.

She heard footsteps, and she opened her eyes. Uncle Nikolay Nikolaitch
was coming rapidly towards her.

"It's you, dear? I am very glad . . ." he began, breathless. "A
couple of words. . . ." He mopped with his handkerchief his red
shaven chin, then suddenly stepped back a pace, flung up his hands
and opened his eyes wide. "My dear girl, how long is this going
on?" he said rapidly, spluttering. "I ask you: is there no limit
to it? I say nothing of the demoralizing effect of his martinet
views on all around him, of the way he insults all that is sacred
and best in me and in every honest thinking man--I will say nothing
about that, but he might at least behave decently! Why, he shouts,
he bellows, gives himself airs, poses as a sort of Bonaparte, does
not let one say a word. . . . I don't know what the devil's the
matter with him! These lordly gestures, this condescending tone;
and laughing like a general! Who is he, allow me to ask you? I ask
you, who is he? The husband of his wife, with a few paltry acres
and the rank of a titular who has had the luck to marry an heiress!
An upstart and a _junker_, like so many others! A type out of
Shtchedrin! Upon my word, it's either that he's suffering from
megalomania, or that old rat in his dotage, Count Alexey Petrovitch,
is right when he says that children and young people are a long
time g